


Hermione Granger: Who's the Monster Now?

by Pixileanin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blood Drinking, Community: HPFT, Drug Addiction, F/M, Vampires, dramione - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 18:12:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13886340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pixileanin/pseuds/Pixileanin
Summary: Hermione Granger becomes a monster and leaves lovers and enemies in her wake.





	Hermione Granger: Who's the Monster Now?

_I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry …_

The words ran through her like a senselessness mantra. How was she supposed to forget about everything and pretend that this was the way she was supposed to be, forever.

Young Hermione Granger wasn’t born into the magical world. She had been granted a gift which her parents had not bestowed on her. They had taught her a lot of things: work hard, study hard, and be excellent at whatever she did.

Teenaged Hermione Granger had applied herself studiously and had been called the “brightest witch of her age”. She’d even helped save the world a few times.

Compared to what she had been, _what she should have become by now_ , she was a mere shadow of her abilities. After the war, she’d discovered that during the battle, she’d been hit with a curse. It had crippled her wand hand and made her practically useless at magic. Depression and overwhelming loss hadn’t even begun to describe what she’d gone through over the last two years.

Her therapist had explained that these people needed what Hermione had. She’d insisted that helping those less fortunate than herself would keep the dark thoughts away.

But as she stood in this alley with broken lamplights and threatening shadows, Hermione had to wonder.

Wait, was she thinking about her breakup with Ron, or the sketchy address she’d been given?

Hermione shook her mind clear. Right now, she had a job to do. Hermione was good at her job. Stellar. An expert liaison between the Ministry of Magic and other entities who deserved representation, magic or no.

She knocked on the warehouse door resolutely. “Hello? Is anyone in there?”

The metal door slid open. Hermione stepped inside, wishing that she could light her wand… wishing that she’d brought her wand. Even though it was a useless piece of wood to her now, she could appear dangerous holding it.

A lithe figure stepped out of the darkness, holding a lone candle. Her face was hidden behind long tresses of hair hanging below her shoulders.

“You’re just in time,” the thin woman said.

Relieved, Hermione nodded. “My name -”

“We know who you are,” the woman said. Then she smiled, and Hermione saw a flash of pointed white.

The woman had fangs.

Hermione had bargained for werewolf rights, freed house elves, and petitioned for goblins to own wands. But vampires were an entirely different matter. This was going to be difficult.

“Everyone deserves a chance for equal representation.” That was her platform, and she was going to stand by it. “If I would have known who you were, I would have prepared better documentation.”

The woman’s smile didn’t change. “If you knew who we were,” she said carefully, “you wouldn’t have come.”

A loud ‘bang’ made her jump. Someone had closed the warehouse door. Someone else had come up from behind her. She jerked her arm away from something that brushed her arm. Suddenly, there were hands, everywhere.

“Wait! Let me go!”

Hermione felt a sharp sting on the back of her neck and fell to the ground.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the thin woman said above Hermione’s screams, “dinner is served.”

 

***

 

When Hermione stumbled through her front door, she found an irate Ronald Weasley waiting for her. At first he’d been relieved, and then he’d been mad. Being supportive and being suffocating were two different things, and in two years, Ron hadn’t learned the difference.

“Look,” he was saying, “all I wanted was to know that you were alright. You didn’t answer my owl yesterday, and today you didn’t show up at the Ministry. Now, at least I can sleep at night.”

“Not in my flat. Look, I had a very long meeting, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life arguing with you.”

Hermione hadn’t meant for that to come out that way, but it was too late to take it back.

Ron stared at her funny. “What are you saying?”

“Please. I need to be on my own. Maybe there will be a time when we can be friends again.”

Now he looked even more lost and confused. “Friends? I thought we were…”

“I’m sorry.” There she went again, apologizing for something that wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It just was. Why couldn’t he see that?

“I should have been more clear before. Don’t come here again.”

Ron looked pained, which he was good at, but she wasn’t going to let him turn this into a personal pity party. She wanted to say something else, something that would mark the finality of the moment, but her words had run out.

For a long moment, his expression fluctuated between sadness and guilt. Then resignation. Then a little bit angry, and then sad again. He left without saying anything at all.

Hermione wasn’t expecting that. She felt as empty as the space in front of her foyer where he’d been standing.

All she could recall about the last twenty-four hours was that she’d had a meeting with someone. She couldn’t even remember what it had been about. Well, she took impeccable notes. She’d look at those after a long sleep. Suddenly, her body felt heavy and ached all over. As she got undressed for her shower, she caught her reflection and gasped. There were scrapes and bruises all over her arms and legs, and strange markings along her neck and shoulders.

It was midnight when she finally got into bed. But her mind kept drifting back to Ron.

He’d helped her every step of the way since losing her magic. But every time she looked at him, she saw someone who remembered who she used to be. There was no relief from it. Maybe by being alone, she could find a way to reconcile herself with her lost magic. She could finally examine how she really felt.

Hermione stared at the empty ceiling. What she was feeling now was hunger.

 

***

 

_Don’t see him, Hermione. At least don’t go alone._

Ron’s words burned through Hermione’s skull as she stood in the bathroom stall, waiting for another witch, or even a wizard to come by and give her a hand.

_Merlin’s pants, I can’t even get to work without someone helping me._

That was the price she paid, now that Ron wasn’t with her every second of every day.

That was what she wanted, right?

What she hadn’t wanted was the extreme hangover that she’d woken up to. She must have picked up a bug from that nasty place. Hermione thought she might stop by St. Mungo’s to get checked out, but after a kindly witch flushed her through the plumbing and she caught sight of her packed schedule, she didn’t even have time for lunch. She couldn’t eat anything anyway. Her stomach threatened to digest itself, but all she could bear was sipping water, and that only kept her mouth from getting unbearably dry.

But if she did go in, she’d have to explain where she’d gone and Ronald Weasley would be summoned on her behalf, since half the staff knew her personally, and knew him even better. He’d been a sloppy patient, coming in almost bi-weekly with Harry after this confrontation or that battle over the last two years. He’d been at her bedside through the three months when her arm had shown signs of dark magic, through the useless therapies and the stumped curse-breakers.

No, she’d face it all later. She sipped another bit of water, this time with a little lemon in it. Potions might make her vomit, and she needed to keep her wits for this meeting, if only on the outside while her insides were betraying her.

When she stepped inside the pub, her senses were assaulted by stale ale and aged cheese. At least the lights were low, which helped a little. She picked her way past seedy-looking patrons until she got to the back table with a lone occupant. Ron hadn’t wanted her to come here, but then Ron could go piss himself. She was sick of being told what she couldn’t do.

Besides, this wizard was on the Ministry’s payroll. He had no reason to hurt her and every reason to give her what she wanted.

She sat down, swallowing her gag reflex. “Malfoy,” she said.

“Granger,” he said. “You look like dragon dung on a hot day.”

Hermione didn’t fall into their usual exchange of insults. When she needed something, it wasn’t a good idea to make her contact’s life miserable.

“The packet, Malfoy.”

Draco furrowed his brows and didn't move. “Seriously, you look unwell.”

Slowly, Hermione's world started spinning. “Just give me the…”

“No,” he said, grabbing her wrist that she’d carelessly left within reach. “You know what kind of game we’re playing here. If you drop dead in this pub, I’m as good as dead too.”

Hermione knew exactly what Draco had locked away, which was why he made such a good contact for the Ministry who was still tracking down the rest of the Death Eaters. “What makes you think that I’d willingly take one of your illegal potions, Malfoy?”

“Because you’re whiter than a banshee and your pulse barely registers.” He held up her wrist. “I’ve seen this before. Let me help you.”

Hermione gasped as she was yanked to her feet. Draco snaked an arm around her waist to keep her upright. Then they were moving through the shadows. She’d always resisted coming back here. The Ministry paid him for information only. She didn’t need to know anything else incriminating about him.

Yet, here she was, leaning on him for support, dragged down a long, dark hallway and into a plush sitting room. Draco stood above her and thrust a clear plastic bag with a dark, viscous substance into her hands.

“Drink.”

 

***

 

“I tried to stay as long as I could, but it was just so boring,” Hermione said plaintively. She knew somewhere inside that she’d been drugged last night. She knew that Draco Malfoy had done it to her on purpose, for some nefarious, backhanded scheme of his, possibly to get more funds out of his benefactor inside the Ministry, but quite frankly, she didn’t care about any of that.

She hadn’t felt this good in a long time. The high inside her was liberating. She finally felt free.

And she wanted more.

Draco Malfoy was looking over his beer at her, with an unreadable expression on his face. “What did you think was going to happen?”

“Oh, I don’t knowww…” She slurred her words as if she were drunk, but all she’d had since the day before yesterday was whatever that mysterious substance was in that plastic bag that he’d given her. “I’m famished,” she said suddenly.

Draco looked rather bemused at this statement. “Really? And what do you want, Granger?”

He was going to make her say it. Hermione would ordinarily not be up for this kind of game with Draco Malfoy, but she felt so terrific that she didn’t care. All sense of propriety had flown out the window since she woke up this morning on his cold, leather couch and discovered that she was whole again.

Whole, as in the hangover was gone. Whole, as in, no pain. Anywhere. Whole, as in her arm was fully healed.

It had been a miraculous recovery. She hadn’t yet tried her wand arm on any real magic, too euphoric to want to take a chance of being disappointed. But now she was loopy and happy, and very, very hungry.

“I want more,” she said simply.

Back in the sitting room, Hermione lounged on the plush couch, kicking off her shoes and propping her bare feet up on the armrest, while Draco was in the back. She could hear him rummaging around behind another closed door, getting her whatever he had gotten her last night. The room looked brighter than it had yesterday. She saw shelves of amusing substances, all of which she’d assumed Draco had tucked away for his questionable clients. Hermione registered that perhaps she was now one of those questionable clients as well, but she really, really didn’t care.

He came back with another bag, and Hermione’s senses perked up. That was the stuff, wasn’t it? But there was something else, drifting subtly in the air that caught her attention. As Draco came nearer, the scent became stronger. Hermione wondered what it could be, and then she was holding the bag. Draco stood over her, like he had before, and suddenly she knew.

Hermione knew what was in the bag, and what she had become. She stood up next to Draco and inhaled deeply. He raised his eyebrows and took her hand, dangling the bag between them.

“This,” he said. “You need it.”

The contents of the bag could sustain her, if that was all that she wanted. But the heady scent still lingered in the air, and she instinctively knew what that was too.

The blood bag looked tasteless. It was probably sheep or cow, or whatever was on hand at the butcher’s shop.

Draco smelled delicious.

Hermione tossed the bag aside, grasped Draco’s shoulders with a strength she didn’t know she had and bit into his neck. It happened so fast that he had no time to resist, or at least that was how she imagined it. But as soon as the hot liquid touched her tongue, all coherent thought vanished.

There was only this.

 

***

 

Draco didn’t know he’d been pacing until he stopped. He’d done things that he wasn’t proud of before. But the things he’d done with Hermione during her last visit had topped the list. He couldn’t wait to see what was in store tonight. Was she going to pretend it had never happened? Was she going to ask for a repeat?

What was wrong with him? He tried to readjust his attitude, to appear to stay cool. But his skin crawled with anticipation. Pain and disappointment – he was used to all that. This was a new low that he needed so badly. He swigged down one of his special potions just as he saw her walk into the pub. As advertised, all of his worries disappeared, and in an instant, all of his anticipation was rewarded.

She dragged him down, and it was glorious.

 

***

 

“So I’ve been reading about this…”

Draco laughed at the sane version of Hermione Granger who still mimicked her former self. “From a book? How pedantic.” Actually, he was getting used to her becoming a fixture on his couch, and he liked it.

“I think we can both survive this. I need blood. You need… well, it won’t be so bad for you.” Hermione cocked her head to the side. She looked good on his couch. “Will you be agreeable?”

Her choice of words made Draco frown. Two months ago, he’d taken her inexplicable entrance into his life at face value. They’d never had to talk about things, and he prefered it that way. “Look, there are so many things that I’ve done that I haven’t AGREED to. My whole life, I never AGREED to do anything. I was a slave to my childhood, and people have the audacity to blame me, as if I had a choice. What’s your excuse?”

Hermione frowned too. “I didn’t ask for this either. It was done to me.”

“So what if I want what you have? The downside is living forever. How bad can that be?”

“I have to admit that my life has improved since…” she gestured to herself, “all of this happened. But any way you look at it, it’s still a curse, and I’ve lost a part of myself in the process.”

“I don’t care,” Draco said. What had once infuriated him about this woman, now excited him in ways that he couldn’t explain. She had changed, and so had he. He was no longer content with mere survival.

He sank to his knees, right in front of her. “I don’t care,” he whispered. “Do it.”

 

****

Hermione couldn’t turn Draco Malfoy into an undead thing. After the initial euphoria of her condition wore off, an ugly reality set in. She finally realized why vampires would never have equal representation in the Ministry of Magic.

She was a parasite.

She’d enticed him with the powers that vampires had to lure in their victims. He had become her slave, and the potions he administered to himself only worsened his condition and made her crave him more.

Something had to give.

That night, after she’d fed and he’d passed out, Hermione dumped Draco at St. Mungo’s Hospital, pretending that he had overdosed on a Sleeping Draught. He’d woken briefly, and then passed out again with her name on his lips. That was a kind of devotion she didn’t deserve. As she left him in the stark room, the on-duty Mediwitch nodded sadly to her.

At first, Hermione bristled because she thought she had been recognized, but it was just that she had left an unconscious patient, and his prognosis was uncertain.

_I don’t want their pity. I am the monster. I did this to him._

As she was leaving, a familiar voice echoed down the hall. Hermione froze. Her world would go pear-shaped in unthinkable ways if Ronald Weasley saw her now.

Months ago, she’d become this thing. If Ron found out, it would break him, and break her as well. She planned to go far away, and never return, hoping that Ron and Draco would recover on their own. Time would have to help them heal and forget.

_I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry..._

She cloaked herself to avoid the Mediwitch who had just admitted Ron for hex burns.

“He’s just not the same after Hermione Granger disappeared,” she overheard them say. “He never did know what happened to her.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short summary version of a longer story that I have been playing around with. Maybe one day, I might write the novella, but for now, this one stands. Thanks for reading!
> 
>  
> 
> Written for The Houses Competition, Year Two, Bonus Round 1  
> House: Hufflepuff  
> Year: 5th  
> Category: Your HoH’s headcanon  
> Hufflepuff: Draco and Hermione cross paths through their jobs and eventually form a relationship.  
> Prompt: [Last line] He/She/They never did know what happened to her/him/it.  
> Wordcount: 2979 (Google Docs)
> 
> Betas: Aya, Writeyourheartout. Thank you both for awesome eyes!


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